The original (and wordier) 12th step refers to God, "...as we understand Him." Isn't that like saying we make up our own image to worship and hit Him up for help? God, as I picture Him, looks and sounds like Henry Kissinger to the 100th power, although He probably doesn't need glasses or a Harvard Ph.D. Twelve-step recovery programs inspired by Bill W., as marvelous and life-changing as they are, nevertheless presaged political correctness. How tired God must become with our human hedging, "...as we understand Him." We're incapable of understanding Him. He's God, we're not. "Kids," he sighs rhetorically, resting His white-bearded chin in the palm of His almighty hand, "what's to understand? I am who I am. I gave you a 10-step program for successful living. Now you need 12? Oy Gevalt!" I believe God has a will and a plan far more advanced and potentially positive than anything I can devise. The secret is to get in touch with His will and His plan for how we should spend our time and energy. And I don't think it includes resentment and frustration. He didn't send Moses down the mountain toting two heavy stone tablets containing 10 suggestions. For that He could have given Moses a Palm Pilot. I want a God who is beyond my understanding. Someone so omnipresent His protection means something, so omnipotent His plan is a guaranteed success if followed, and so omniscient that nothing will surprise Him. How boring it must have been for God to watch Let's Make a Deal when He already knew what Monte Hall was hiding behind each door and curtain. There is no hiding around corners or in closets from an omnipresent God. He's everywhere I am and everywhere everybody else is at the same time. Many of my colleagues in the academy, the club you join when you earn a Ph.D, mock the notion that a whale swallowed Jonah. They feel only gullible fools could believe in such fairy tales. Theologian Charles Swindoll said the God he believes in could have made Jonah swallow the whale if He'd wanted to play it that way. I'll believe in that God, thank you. And I don't understand Him. I don't know many people who truly understand themselves, much less the One who created them.

God's Grace and Your I-Boss

I've heard God's grace defined as blessings I don't deserve and His mercy defined as sparing me the punishment I do. Whatever blessings He extends to me, He also extends to my I-Boss. That's the amazing thing about grace. If you elevate your perspective high enough, you will no longer see smart people vs. dumb people, you'll just see people. I believe a divine Creator made (1) an environment that will forgive most any ecological disaster, (2) carbon-based bodies that heal themselves of most ailments despite how much we abuse them, and (3) minds that can reflect on the human condition - past, present, and future - and make improvements. Maybe Idiot Bosses are not a mistake after all. Perhaps God made Idiot Bosses to keep us honest and humble. Is it possible that I-Bosses are not the freaks of evolution we initially perceive them to be? Do we need I-Bosses in our lives and we're just too proud to admit it? Who else can we blame for our continual career frustrations? Do we hate our Idiot Bosses because they deserve it or because they can't defend themselves? Are we the bullies and our I-Bosses the 98-pound weaklings? Are I-Bosses part of the same food chain that includes the rest of us? If one person's floor is another person's ceiling, is one person's I-Boss another person's hero? Although we sometimes go off on our customers, at the end of the day, we are all somebody else's customer? Am I asking too many questions? What do you think? I have sometimes invented Idiot Bosses in my life to evade capture and punishment for my own transgressions. Scapegoats are easier to find than solutions. Why spend energy planning for a better future when I can spend it all whining about the present and the past? We create idiots so we can stand on someone's shoulders to keep our heads above the flood of stupidity to which we all contribute. The stories about idiots are legion.

They clog up cyberspace like hairs in the shower drain. Despite the reports, I'm not so sure these people are all idiots. They might merely be idiots of convenience that we trump up to make ourselves feel better. Among my esteemed colleagues is a great teacher and a terrible golfer, all rolled into one, a distinction I reserved for myself until we met. He is a scientist and I am a philosopher. His discipline is exact science. Behavioral science, despite its moniker, is an art form. In the precise world in which he operates, fools are easily quantifiable and he snipes at them without a second thought. My friend sent me a collection of actual answers to test questions submitted to science and health teachers by students. These might have appeared in your cyber flotsam at some point: 1. H20 is hot water and CO2 is cold water. 2. When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide. 3. Water is composed of two gins, Oxygen and Hydrogen. Oxygen is pure gin. Hydrogen is water and gin. 4. Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away. 5. Vacuum: A large empty space where the Pope lives. 6. Germinate: To become a naturalized German Sure, go ahead and laugh. I might have given some of those answers in desperate sweaty moments when I took undergraduate final exams after skipping classes all semester. It's easy for smart people, especially scientists, to think of the rest of us as idiots. Their questions have only one correct answer. Look at these answers philosophically or artistically and you can appreciate the trend toward multiple intelligences, which is another way of saying that we're not all scientists. There is no single right answer in dealing with human beings.

Idiots: Real or Not Real?

Idiots in the workplace can either be real or imagined. If they are real, we need to deal with them. If they are imagined, we need psychiatric help. Former Secretary of State Dean Acheson wrote, "A memorandum is written not to inform the reader, but to protect the writer." Not if you're an idiot. Try some of these actual management comments on for size:

■ "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say."

■ "Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the deadline."

■ "My hope is that we can boil down these two documents and make three."

■ "This project is so important, we can't let more important things interfere with it."

■ "E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business."

■ "We know communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees." There are two ways to ensure your words will be memorialized - say something exceptionally wise or exceptionally stupid. The managers who made the aforementioned comments thought their logic was as solid as Gibraltar. One even gave me a pamphlet a former employee had published, filled with his convoluted logic. He thought the publication was a tribute. I thanked him for the pamphlet and excused myself. I was late for a meeting back on Earth. If you really want to know the answer to the question at the top of this article, "If Idiot Bosses didn't exist, would we create them?" you must first accept that it's a stupid question. Idiot Bosses do exist, by anyone's definition. The better question is, "How do you survive them?" A deeper and more ominous question is, "Am I really an idiot trying to live a life of denial and disguise?" Maybe I'm even projecting my own stupidity on an Idiot Boss, making him appear worse than he truly is. It's in the blood Genetics is yet another way we should be able to connect with our Idiot Bosses at some level. Some of us have Irish blood, others have German, or worse, Irish and German. What can you expect when you mix naturally conquering people with a weakness for alcohol? Most likely, Lutherans or Irish Catholics. Some people have Italian blood, some have French. You do the math. For most of us, if we trace the roots of our family trees deep enough, there are bound to be idiots in the woodpile. Try looking at your I-Boss through a twisted lens for a change. The bloodlines are not in their favor. This explains their anemic comprehension skills. When you attempt to persuade an I-Boss to do something, your first task is to help him grasp the concept. Give him the benefit of the doubt. Idiot Bosses want to be liked despite the fact they are so dislikable. Keep saying to yourself, "He really means well." Not that saying it makes everything whole again. But at least it lifts the shroud of evil intentions.

Compare your I-Boss to other boss types with truly evil intentions and you'll appreciate him more. Good Bosses always mean well and generally have the intelligence to do well. Many Idiot Bosses would be Good Bosses if they could just hold a thought long enough without getting bored and trying to play management. The line that separates Good Bosses from I-Bosses is sometimes as thin as a few points on the intelligence compass. Good Bosses are concerned primarily with the growth and development of their team members because they know highly motivated people are highly productive. The intelligence factor separating a Good Boss from an I-Boss includes recognition that meaningless tasks I-Bosses force on their team members are counterproductive to growth and development of the individual and, subsequently, to the organization. I-Bosses don't intentionally set out to thwart the performance of their team vmembers, they just come by it naturally. I-Bosses give lip service to reaching company goals as they parrot the mantras of motivational authors. But, in the end, they muck up the works with irrelevant tasks, inappropriate evaluations of performance, and miscommunication. They don't grasp the notion that all of the minor chaos they create daily eventually adds up to major chaos. It's all in the blood analysis report.

Concept Avoidance

Intelligence, in the right hands, makes a Good Boss effective. Stupidity, in the wrong hands, will turn an otherwise effective organization into a circus. Good Bosses know the integrity of the 10th floor depends on the integrity of the nine below it. Imagine you're having a conversation with an Idiot Boss over lunch in the penthouse restaurant of a tall building he just helped complete. "We saved money by mixing substandard building materials with the good stuff," the I-Boss explains as he tries to pick a sesame seed out of his first molar. You stop your salad fork just short of your open mouth, blink twice, and set the loaded fork back on your plate. "Did you just say this tall building we're sitting on top of is constructed with substandard building materials?" "A memo came clown to cut costs," the I-Boss says, flicking the sesame seed over his shoulder. "I figured that meant cutting labor or material expenses, and with the union and all, cutting labor would have been tough, so I bought some brand X items." The I-Boss slathers butter all over the rest of his sesame roll and crams it in his mouth. "Got some great-looking stuff from a guy named Freddie the Palm," he mumbles through a mouthful of roll and butter. "Really cheap, too." "Aren't you worried?" you ask, trying to avoid looking at what he's chewing. "Heck no." The I-Boss swallows and takes a big gulp of water. "We came in on budget and they gave me a big raise." "I mean, do you feel safe in a building made from inferior building materials?" you ask, scanning the walls and ceiling for cracks or other telltale signs of structural failure. The I-Boss chuckles. "You must think I'm stupid." "I didn't say that," you snap, hoping the thought, so present in your mind, didn't slip out. "I'll have you know," he assures you, "that I used the highest quality steel and concrete here on the upper floors where the executive offices are located. The concrete and steel more prone to structural failure are on the lower floors where the peons work." "That was a stroke of genius," you say pleasantly as you get up from the table and exit the building as quickly as possible. Education is probably lost on a person too block-headed to realize the health and well-being of the big picture depends on the health and well-being of its component parts. A Good Boss gets it and cares enough to do something about it. A Good Boss consistently demonstrates intelligence, character, and common sense. Common sense alone can cover a multitude of sins. Much of the frustration we experience when dealing with Idiot Bosses comes from expecting them to demonstrate common sense. Idiots' blood doesn't appear to be sufficiently oxygenated to mentally grasp the concept of common sense. They can do sensible things, but it won't be because something is sensible. It will be the result of your efforts to lead them in that direction.

Blood Sacrifice

I-Bosses can be distinguished from other boss types by more than the presence or absence of intelligence. Consider how intelligence is used. Persons in positions of power who truly believe they are gods combine delusional thinking with superior intelligence to produce the curious cognition cocktail that guides the behavior of God Bosses. The ability to focus and stay on task can be a God Boss' strongest suit, "as he understands himself." His primary task is not the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. A God Boss's cunning behavior seldom relates to what lie is being paid to do. I've noticed world leaders, as well as corporate leaders, who actually believe they are deity, tend to have underlying paranoid tendencies. That's the only way for a God Boss to stay in power. He must repress or eliminate anyone and anything who might point out he's a mere mortal. My mom always left out the part in the Emperor's New Clothes where the child who exposed the ruse was arrested by secret police, imprisoned, and tortured. I know she was trying to protect me, but if she had left it in, I would have been better prepared for corporate life. As I mentioned before, God Bosses can't allow reasonable people within their sphere of influence to have any voice or platform from which to expose them as frauds. But silencing people and disposing of their bodies without drawing attention requires cunning. A God Boss will demonstrate his intelligence in clever-yet-diabolical schemes necessary to silence seekers and speakers of truth. A God Boss's work is never done because there will always seem be someone with a natural desire to reveal the truth - except when filing income taxes, filling out job applications, or explaining to their spouses the real reason they arrived home late. It takes most of a God Boss's energy to build a ring of sub-God henchpersons who will round up anyone even suspected of not paying proper homage. Although a God Boss will never overtly engage in paranoid behaviors the way a Paranoid Boss will, this hyper-vigilant self-protection suggests God Bosses know they're not really gods. Even with all of the God Boss' subjects genuflecting and singing psalms of praise, the God Boss is convinced most, if not all, of them pose a threat. If God Bosses were truly omnipotent and omniscient, they wouldn't feel the need to defend themselves against insurrections, real or imagined. The God I believe in looks down on all the rebellion targeted against Him, shakes his almighty head, and takes a mighty aspirin.

To Him, insurrection is a disappointment, not a tangible threat. God Bosses remind me of historical figures, some dating back beyond the Clinton administration, who ordered family members whacked just to make sure they wouldn't be assassinated at a holiday reunion. We all saw Godfather II, right? If God Bosses didn't exist, would we create them? Not likely. They are of no functional use to anyone. Machiavellian Bosses also often apply their superior intelligence to evil purposes. There is nothing wrong with the desire to succeed, mind you. I hope every person has a desire to reach ever higher. Desire plays a tremendous role in creating the standard of living we enjoy in this great nation of ours. The difference between the typical standard of living in the United States and the standard of living elsewhere in the world is rooted in the definition of success. The former Soviet Union, for example, is essentially equal to the United States in terms of natural resources and labor pool. I believe their oil reserves are even larger. Why, then, does the average American welfare recipient have a higher income, a more comfortable home, a larger color television, and a more reliable car than the average Russian shift supervisor? The last scats I saw indicated a single mother in the United States receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), with all of her cash and non-cash public assistance combined, has a higher income than 90 percent of the world's population. That doesn't mean she's rich. It means the world is full of desperately poor people. In the old Soviet Union, Boris was the victim of a dumbed-down definition of success. Dating back to the Tsar, success was defined by keeping your head down and doing what you were told to avoid arrest, imprisonment, and torture by the secret police. The Bolshevik Revolution put an end to all that. With the Communist Party in charge, the definition of success changed to keeping your head down and doing what you were told to avoid arrest, imprisonment, and torture by the secret police.

In the new Russia, success is the ability to traffic Calvin Kline jeans on the black market, Russian-made weapons and night-vision goggles on the international black market, or open a McDonald's franchise and use your profits to pay off the secret police to leave you alone. Only when you define success in the context of what you are capable of, not merely what you're allowed to do, can life become truly rich. Unfortunately, to Machiavellians, the desire to succeed is mutually exclusive with failure in others. Whereas a God Boss will take out someone he thinks is threatening to expose him, a Machiavellian will take people out for merely standing between her and what she wants. God and Machiavellian Bosses, being intelligent and cunning, don't pitch high-volume, dramatic tantrums, drawing attention to their activities. As with my boss at Disneyland, God and Machiavellian Bosses strike with stealth and skill to surgically remove the offending parties quietly. God and Machiavellian Bosses go a step further to send a psychological message. A small drop of blood, left clearly visible on the victim's computer keyboard for the other team members to see, is a compelling reminder of the price of irreverence or interference. Just as God Bosses have underlying paranoia, Machiavellian Bosses have underlying narcissism. Idiot Bosses have underlying cluelessness, which I'm amazed is not a diagnostic category according to the American Psychological Association. The fact remains, God, Machiavellian, and Idiot Bosses exist, so we don't need to ponder if we would or would not create them in their absence.